A new technique, particulate impact mass spectrometry (PIMS), has been partially developed at MRI and has been used to obtain reasonable electron impact mass spectra of thermally sensitive and nonvolatile materials. Because the PIMS technique utilizes solutions directly and because the experimental measurements indicate that nanogram level sensitivity can be obtained, PIMS appears useful for liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry of trace quantities of nonvolatile pollutants. Some of the potential applications include the analysis of trace quantities of drugs, carcinogens and other toxic materials and their metabolites as well as the determination of all products of normal and abnormal metabolic processes. PIMS should also be useful for structural studies of complex nonvolatile compounds, particularly since several ionization techniques can be used. A research program is proposed which will utilize existing techniques to definitively characterize PIMS. An investigation of several additional techniques for mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry of nonvolatile compounds is also proposed.